


As if by Nature, We Come Together

by Officer_Jennie



Category: Naruto
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-04
Updated: 2019-07-04
Packaged: 2020-06-03 17:23:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,845
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19468624
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Officer_Jennie/pseuds/Officer_Jennie
Summary: Without the war, Madara had difficulty finding where he belonged - until the day it all fell into place.





	As if by Nature, We Come Together

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Kage88](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kage88/gifts).



> For the ship may be small, but it is strong

There was no shortage of warriors in his time. Madara had felled and fought alongside a good thousand or so in his lifetime already, many of which deserved some level of respect for their skill in some form of jutsu or another.

In that respect, Touka was no different from the rest. The Senju’s naginata master had no special jutsu of her own, nor kekkei genkai to set her apart from the majority. Her speed was above average but sluggish in comparison to her younger cousin, genjutsu skill nonexistent, ninjutsu decent. What exactly caught Madara’s eye the first time he truly noticed her, then, he couldn’t say.

Weeks had already turned into months after Konoha’s founding. Most of their respective clans had calmed enough to relax their grips on their hidden weapons when out and about in the ever growing streets. It was a time of relative peace amongst long term enemies, the best they could hope for and then some considering their blood soaked pasts.

Despite having been his dream, Madara found it harder than most to let the war go. Though unlike the white demon assumed, he truly was _trying_. Spending more time than he’d like walking through the village, stiltedly attempting to speak with the civilians and citizens outside of his own clan, keeping a careful eye on anyone he thought might try to disturb the peace.

Not the best efforts one could put forth, but it’s what Madara could muster.

That afternoon wasn’t even the closest to the first time he’d seen Touka. His whole life up to only a few short months ago had been dedicated to fighting her clan, and though they’d never personally crossed swords they’d certainly seen each other from across the battlefield. After Konoha had been founded, his eyes had passed over her face at a handful of official meetings as well - though not on a first name basis, he knew her well enough to recognize on sight from down the busy street, even without her armor or weapons.

She was not wearing anything special. Nor was she performing any action that should have drawn his attention. All she was doing was leaning against the shaded part of a building, watching as the crowd walked past, her arms stiff over her chest as some nondescript Senju chatted on at her side.

Only for a fleeting moment, their gazes met. In hers Madara found no burning anger or deep comradery. All he found was the same guarded hesitance that kept him on edge even when visiting his longest and dearest friend.

For the first time since his village had been formed, Madara felt the sidelines weren’t empty save for him.

Not that anything changed between him and the Senju’s warrior. The weeks and months passed as they had before with nary a look nor a word passed between them save for what was necessary, the both of them having their own lives and loved ones to grow every close to. And as the time passed Madara found himself in the sidelines less and less anyway, drug forward and onward by the man he’d once sworn to kill if it took his own life to do so.

Their paths inevitably crossed at the most common aspect of their persons. Madara had never liked training where others could watch him - a leftover anxiety from having his every kata analyzed so heavily by his father in his youth - preferring the training grounds that were located just outside Konoha’s wall in the forest Hashirama was tending to in his spare time. It was where he often went to recharge after the long and tedious council meetings he was forced to attend, where the blood rushing in his ears could drown out all the responsibilities that had been weighing his shoulders down throughout his days here.

Revolutions were not won by being idle. He knew it would be hard work, but nothing could prepare one for creating something so new in an old world. Madara envied Hashirama’s sturdy nature and the way his head stayed above such silly notions of normality and the customs of the world they’d both been raised in.

But on that particular evening, his forest training field was not empty. Madara made no attempt to guise his presence as he approached the Senju warrior, stopping just at the edge of the tree line to watch her movements. He had no delusions that she did not notice him there, but it did not slow her training. Naginata slicing through opponents only she could see in her focus, sweat pouring from the heat, dust kicked up and setting on her exposed arms and face.

Few court women would ever envy her for beauty, but many shinobi would envy her strength and sheer determination. Her stance was strong despite the effort she exerted, muscles straining through the intensity of her work out - from her heavy breathing and how disturbed the field was she must have been out there for hours, enduring even the hottest part of the day during Hi no Kuni’s reputably hellish summers.

If nothing else, Madara could respect her determination as well. 

He left with a calm enough mind despite not lifting a weapon to train for himself, leaving the Senju warrior after watching her technique for only a few hours. If his presence had bothered her, he knew without a doubt she would have demanded he leave, and felt no shame for analyzing her kata and ninjutsu for his own potential use later.

It took little thought for Madara to finally realize why he so rarely saw Touka. His days were spent building and expanding the political prowess of his village, stuck in stuffy offices and meetings set up by the white demon who ran much of the village single handedly. The tower that had been erected to hold the hokage’s office (as well as much of the rest of the administrative powers in Konoha) held no office for her, and some sort of burning curiosity as to why that was sent Madara seeking out Touka only a few weeks after he’d run into her training in the forest.

Though her chakra was not one Madara was overly familiar with, he found it easy enough to pinpoint hers amongst the rest in the Senju compound. It was more akin to Hashirama’s than anything else, sturdy and set in stone, resistant to the influences around her. Madara tracked that rooted chakra to the outskirts of the Senju compound, ignoring the occasional stares he still received while there without his normal accompaniment.

She was not alone there. Three rather young Senju were gathered around her, watching as she demonstrated kenjutsu techniques, the steel of her naginata shinning in the midday light. After a few stances, she paused long enough to answer any questions, setting the others off to practice on their own while she watched over them.

Most anyone else Madara would have left to their teaching. But something in the hard swing of her weapon had him approaching her before he could realize he’d started to move, her eyes meeting and keeping his gaze once he stopped next to her.

“I never took you for a teacher.”

As far as first words went, they were hardly meaningful. Touka shrugged one shoulder in response, turning her head back to watch the Senju children. “I’m not one. But someone has to train them.”

Since the academy was already up and running, it was a rather odd stance to take. But though the statement itself did not hit home, her tone said much more.

War was harder to let go of than their newly elected hokage might make it seem.

No real conversation was had that afternoon, only the clang of training blades and distant bustle to break the quiet. But once again Madara felt a pleasant enough calm keeping his mind at ease after he left the warrior’s company, going back to the politics she seemed to have little interest in despite her kin.

That afternoon seemed to be the start of a trend of sorts. Every so often, when Madara found his mind too stressed to stand another minute in the presence of those wrapped up in politics, he’d find himself drawn to wherever Touka might be in the village. Never once did their conversations become much more than a sentence back and forth, no meaningful or deep discussions to be had between them, yet the breath of fresh air that brought him was more necessary than Madara might be willing to admit even to himself.

When he was not seeking out her periphery company, Madara still found the most calm in honing himself. Battles were few and far in-between but a shinobi had to be prepared at all times, and when his breathing was labored with effort was the only time Madara truly felt he could _breathe_.

This was what he was meant for. What he had been born for. The fires of battle and the singing blood that coursed through him as he danced around his enemies.

His enemies were now mere shadow clones, of course. A useful jutsu he’d unashamedly stolen the moment he could from the Senju demon, copying it with his sharingan and perfecting it in a single evening. Now the only better opponent he found to train with was Hashirama, though the man’s infuriating habit of holding back kept him from demanding it too often.

The forest training field he’d staked a claim on was the perfect location to go big. Katon jutsu might be a no-go there but everything else was fair game, it being far away enough from the rabbit hearted civilians to keep them from panicking over his more powerful techniques. And Madara had a little over a handful of new ones to try out after discovering a way to save both his and Izuna’s eye sights from deteriorating into nothing.

Experimenting with the eternal mangekyo left Madara a bit more gleeful than he probably should have been. He laughed openly at how easily his clones were dispatched by the perfected susano’o, crushing the ground and splitting it open with a single swipe of its sword. The jagged earth it left in its wake would be better left to Hashirama to fix later (Madara might know some doton ninjutsu but it had always felt more forced coming from him, like trying to pass a solid rock through the eye of a needle) so he paid it little mind, standing back to admire his handiwork.

Destruction was far too much fun.

The peace Konoha had brought to his life had made Madara’s guard grow lax, but that didn’t mean he was ignorant to his surroundings. The moment Touka came within a half mile of him he sensed her, and felt her pause. He paid it little mind until she turned to head in his direction, rolling his stiff shoulders and keeping his gunbai down so as to not appear to be in a fighting stance.

Allies they might be, but one’s memories could overtake logic. Despite his tendency to bull through life care was often necessary to keep the peace.

Touka had no such quarrels against twirling her weapon the second her feet touched the ground, stalking towards him as the steel flashed in the sunlight. With a single quirked smirk, she stopped not a dozen feet away from him, the naginata halting its spin as she jabbed the end into the dirt to hold it as she stretched.

“Looks rather boring training out here on your own, Uchiha. Want some company?”

It was the first time their blades ever truly crossed. Touka’s naginata against Madara’s gunbai, their chakra clashing and soaring high in the exhilaration of mock battle. And though Madara had to leave many of his skills at the side of the field (ninjutsu, his kekkei genkai, genjutsu), training his kata and kenjutsu with such a fierce warrior as his partner was an unexpected and welcome challenge.

Warriors knew no better language. Clattering steel, singing blood, straining muscle. Though they rarely spoke a word to each other over the next months, through this dance they conversed. Little else changed as Konoha expanded and grew, clans from all over Hi no Kuni migrating and bringing more prosperity and headaches along with them.

Finding the spare time to let off steam became more difficult. His office felt more like a second (and unwelcome) home, littered coffee cups and rushed breakfast wrappings taking up the half of his desk that wasn’t spilling over with unending paperwork. Madara’s head hurt more often now than it had when his eyes had caused icepick migraines throughout his days, and it was all he could do to sit there and force himself to keep signing the documents he didn’t even bother reading anymore.

When his door opened without a cursory knock, Madara ground his teeth in irritation, not bothering to look up from whatever missive should have had his attention at the moment. “If you even think about sitting anything else on my desk, I’ll have your hand before it touches the wood.”

“Is that anyway to treat the hand that feeds you?”  
Her smirk was evident enough in her words before Madara looked up to see her, one hand stuck on her hip while Touka dropped a bento smack in the middle of his desk and on top of the missive he’d been zoning out over.

“What’s this?”

The question was stupid, but the visit itself was baffling enough to throw him off guard. Not that Touka would let him off the hook just for being confused; as she sat down in the opposite chair and kicked her feet up on his desk, she dug right on in with teasing him. As if it were completely natural for her to be there, in his office, bringing him lunch to eat while she ate her own.

Before long, it had become natural. Having lunch together became as much a part of Madara’s days as dragging Hashirama to his office of a morning or hunting down his paperwork whenever the idiotic interns inevitably sent it down to the wrong branch. Whether it was a bento in his office, a trip to the restaurant district, or even a quiet meal on the roof of the hokage tower, the routine became so ingrained that on the rare days one of them was off on a mission it felt _off_ for Madara to not have her company.

Madara had almost forgotten what it felt like to be lonely. Though his thoughts so often drifted towards his lunch and training partner that it was difficult to tell whether it was truly loneliness bothering him. Izuna’s wicked grins reminded him of her smirking, preparing a lunch for himself ended in making enough to share, a stray glance in a market lead to a gifted kunai set left on her front porch – little by little, the Senju warrior who’d meant nothing now had found ways to impact him more than most anyone ever had before.

A blessed lull came over Konoha once the rainy season hit, fewer clans migrating in the weather meaning fewer headaches for the lot of them in the tower. It gave Madara a much needed breath of fresh if muggy air, time to destress and work out the bit of soft his body had taken on after all those evenings sat on his arse in the council rooms.

Though the rains came almost every day and left mud in their wake, that evening was about as dry as Madara could hope for until fall. He took advantage of the light sprinkling and worked his muscles until they were sore, only pausing when a familiar approaching signature brought a grin to his face.

“You’re late.” He leaned against his gunbai as she dropped from the trees near him, watching as she cracked her neck and stretched out her arms.

“Can’t exactly be late if I wasn’t invited.”

As she took up her naginata, he did the same with his gunbai, taking a defensive stance as he waited for her coming assault. “You know you’re always invited.”

“I know.”

Their dance that evening was like any other they’d shared. Movements so familiar they were fluid, warriors clashing together and breaking apart, both wild grins and singing blood as they battled in the rain.

Until Madara head snapped backwards at an unexpected hit, his steps stumbling back as their training paused. One hand coming up to feel the trickle of blood coming off of one lip as he blinked over at this wild woman who’d worked her way into his life, breathless in that moment for a reason beyond working his body to the ground.

Touka stood staring back at him, one hand now at her cocked hip, a knowing grin cutting her mouth while her eyes softened. “Finally get it, do you?”

All he could do was nod dumbly as he felt his life finally fall into place next to hers.


End file.
